by Alan Imai

Sensei Alan Imai, Associate Director of Shinji Shumeikai of America, serves as the Shumei Natural Agriculture International Project Coordinator, and is Co-Director of the Crestone Project for Shumei.

One day at the Shinji Shumeikai New York Center, Nancy and Eduardo, both of whom are bilingual in English and Spanish, were reading the January/February, 2001, issue of SHUMEI Magazine. In that issue, Larry Deutsch's article on the Crestone Project began with the following sentence: "High in the Sangre de Christo Mountains of the San Luis Valley in Colorado, a new spiritual center is being constructed by Shinji Shumeikai." As soon as they read this sentence, both of them looked at each other and asked me, "Do you know the meaning of 'Sangre de Christo'?" At that time I found out that the meaning is "Blood of Christ." I immediately felt my whole body begin to shake from deep inside. Blood of Christ is one of the most sacred of names to Christians. Long before European people came to this continent, indigenous people admired this place and considered it a sacred land. Those native people's way of understanding nature and their spiritual sense were often considered primitive, and were ignored. However, when the Christians came here, they were able to sense the sacred spiritual atmosphere through the beauty of the mountains and the valley, and to truly respect it. And they gave the mountains the most sacred name of their religion. Such reflections arose within me in New York as I learned the meaning of the name, Sangre de Christo.

With such thoughts in mind, I visited Crestone again on April 2, and learned that at sunset, the eastern side of the San Luis Valley of the Sangre de Christo Mountains turns totally red, so people call these mountains the Blood of Christ. With this explanation, I didn't feel such a strong connection between the sacredness of the mountains and the Christian faith. I wondered if my thoughts in New York might just have been a creation of my imagination. On April 4, the Western sky glowed with the setting sun and the snow-covered eastern mountains turned into a deep purple-pink color. Hide, a Shumei staff person living in Crestone, said, "In summer, this entire sky turns to red." It was already so beautiful and attractive. When I imagine the entire sky and eastern side of the mountains becoming totally red, I wanted to believe that my thoughts in NY had been right. First, people came here as missionaries all the way from Europe and saw the massive beauty in red. I thought that they must have heard the voice of Jesus and felt the encouragement of God.

When visitors come to this valley, each experiences the sacredness of the land and expresses it in a way related to his or her background. When the Tibetan Buddhists came, they felt a relationship to the Himalayan Mountains. When the Chinese came, they thought of the valley surrounded by Dragon Mountains. In this sacred land, Ms Hanne Strong has been inviting traditional religious and spiritual expressions from around the world and creating an inter-faith community. Now, Shinji Shumeikai is about to join it. Prior to the Groundbreaking Ceremony, in Ms Strong's letter to Kaicho-Sensei (Ms Hiroko Koyama, President of Shinji Shumeikai) she wrote, "The plans you have for the mine site are important and beautiful. Your project really expresses the dire wish of Meishusama to help create a new civilization, not just in Japan, but also for the whole world. It will be such a great addition to our community and your work can spread to the world from here."